Donald Trump’s TV Ad Strategy Could Cost Him Votes

Donald Trump is used to a different TV ad strategy. He doesn’t do TV advertising. He prefers the old-fashioned way and saves every dollar he can. He sticks with the rallies and free media coverage.

He doesn’t even do much of the fund-raising thing. Trump explained, “I don’t even know why I need so much money. Why do I even need these commercials?”

300,000 TV commercials covered these candidates since June. Most were in Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina. Very few were on national networks. 80 percent were for Hillary Clinton. 18 percent were for Trump. The funny thing is that Trump is clearly holding his own even though he isn’t putting much money into it. Is he doing the right thing?

Ads for Hillary Vs Trump

Seth J. Hill from the University of California says to simply compare who is winning in areas where the advertising is pretty much even with areas in which Clinton does a lot of advertising verses the areas where Trump does a lot of the advertising.

In those areas where Trump was doing most of the advertising, Clinton was falling behind. In the places where she was advertising, Trump was falling behind at around 6 points. Then in places where neither are advertising, Clinton has been up by 4 points since June. Lynn Vavreck from The New York Times concluded, “the more candidates out-advertise their opponents, the more they pick up in vote share.” She also stated that their effects were small but eventually become a big problem.

In places like Arizona where she was pretty much the only one dominating with the ads she has about 3.8 points over Trump. Some states didn’t do much advertising. 26 states had less than 100 ads playing with nine having more than 5,000. Florida and Ohio voters have seen 120,000 TV ads combined. Most of them, of course, were for Hillary Clinton.

Researching Effects of TV Ads

Vavreck made several phone calls and knocked on many doors to find out the effects of the ads on voters. All of them said that in five states there were over 100 ads that Trump dominated and then 18 in which Hillary Clinton was dominating. The best state for Trump is Michigan where he had 1,567 more ads than her. In Florida, she’s taking the lead with 44,000 ads.

Overall, her margins have increased at about half a percentage point during that period. In North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, she’s been doing great since June. In PA, the increase was about six points. Then two points in Florida and Nevada.

Ads are clearly useful in the election cycle. Donald Trump hasn’t been fully utilizing this tactic and it is hurting him. Every point counts. Hillary is putting all her chips in. She wants nothing more than to win.

Trump’s strategy of staying with the same old rallies and free media coverage has still kept him up there with Clinton. However, she is winning in battleground states.

So, the next time you sit down to watch your favorite afternoon show and you hear that familiar screech of crooked Hillary’s voice, you know you’re being brain-washed by one of her ads.